Particularly in a home or small commercial woodworking shop the need for and frequency of shaping the edges of boards is seldom sufficient to warrant the significant investment necessary to procure a heavy duty commercial floor type spindle shaper and the cutters and various accessories which are required to fully utilize such a machine. As a result, when it becomes necessary in such a shop to shape the edges of a few boards, the usual expediency is to mount a hand router on the bottom of a small counter top type of router table, with the cutter projecting through a centrally located hole in the table. The top of the table normally is equipped with a fence consisting of two pieces which are spaced on opposite sides of the cutter and which must be aligned--usually with some difficulty--with one another and with the periphery of the cutter. The boards are then pressed against the fence as they are slowly fed into engagement with the rotating cutter.
Anyone who has used an arrangement of the type described above will recognize the difficulties normally encountered in attempting to obtain acceptable results.
First, as the usual counter top type of router table is quite light it will move readily under the pressures normally needed to keep a work piece tightly against the two piece fence while at the same time pushing the work piece into the rotating cutter. In addition to these pressures, the high frequency vibrations which are transmitted to the table from the rapidly rotating parts of the router will, in themselves, sometimes cause a machine to "creep". In almost all instances, therefore, these lightweight router tables must be bolted or clamped to a heavy stationery work bench or table. This, of course, will solve the problem of undesired movement, but at the expense not only of raising the top of the router table to a height which is both awkward and unsafe but the loss of valuable bench-top space so long as the router table is kept ready for use.
Even with the usual router table suitably anchored and located at a comfortable working height, it is difficult to obtain a smooth ripple free and blemish free finish. As pointed out above, the two sections of the usual router fence are not only difficult to properly align with each other and with the cutter but their use leads to various other problems. For example
even if the fence sections appear to be aligned it is not unusual in feeding the end of a board into the cutter to catch the end of the board on the edge of the fence immediately beyond the cutter, causing the board to stop and/or jump, resulting in a hump, gouge or "burn" on the machined edge at that point; PA1 particularly when machining a short board or taking an "end" cut, before the unsupported end of the board has bridged the gap between the fence sections, a slight "glitch" in the manual pressure used in moving the board past the cutter often times will cause the unsupported end of the board to dip momentarily into the gap, thus resulting in too deep a cut at that point; PA1 in making a cut which reduces the width of the board as it passes the cutter, if the fence section beyond the cutter is not moved forward a distance exactly equal to the amount of material to be removed--a procedure which is difficult at best--the board coming out of the cutter will not be held straight and a defective cut will result as pressure is transferred to the second fence section near the end of the cut; PA1 as there is no positive control of the movement of the fence sections, it is exceedingly difficult and time consuming to re-set the fence sections to remove a few thousandths of an inch of material as, for example, to accomplish a press fit between pieces; PA1 the small area of the router table is incapable of supporting work pieces of any substantial length or width; PA1 in spite of the application of considerable force in pressing a work piece toward the two section fence while feeding the work piece into the cutter, it is difficult to avoid--particularly with hardwoods--the generation of a machined edge which does not show ripples resulting from the "floating" effect caused by high frequency vibration of the work piece as the high speed cutter encounters and bites into the moving work piece; PA1 the pressure needed to reduce the effect of the vibration and "float" of a moving work piece is not conducive to a smooth even feed of the work piece into the cutter but to the contrary tends to cause a "jerky" or uneven feed; PA1 as the "floating" effect caused by the high speed cutter tends to keep a moving work piece suspended slightly from the router fence, any slow down or stoppage in the rate of movement of the cutter will cause a slightly deeper cut or gouge and hence an uneven machined surface, including burns and ripples; PA1 due to a lack of space between the lower surface of the router table and the upper section of the router attached thereto, it is difficult, awkward and time consuming to release and tighten the collet or other mechanism as required to change a router bit; PA1 should the worker be using his hands rather than some type of pushing device to push a work piece past the router cutter, inadvertent slippage of the fingers off the work piece can lead to serious injuries since the two pressures being exerted on the work piece combine on a vector which is aimed almost directly at the cutter.
Over the years, various suggestions have been proposed for solving one or more of these types of problems in a machine sized and priced for the home and small shop market. As far as is known, however, prior to the present invention, none of the many tool manufactures in the industry have been successful in designing, developing and selling a router machine which is reasonably priced and sized, is safe and convenient in use and successfully eliminates most if not all of the other problems described above.